There are numerous magnetic products available in the marketplace today. Magnetic materials have become increasingly common in the business forms and labels industry for their ability to provide the customer with an advertising or remembrance piece that can be passed along or saved for future reference.
Today's growth of new technology plays a vital role in creating and providing businesses with laser compatible forms and products that can be used in a variety of businesses and industries. The rise in the interest of articles having magnetic components has created a demand for the availability of such products but also has presented the manufacturer with the difficulties of including this auxiliary material along with traditional form and product stock.
In addition to the difficulties associated with having to add what amounts to a large “chunk” of material, one which typically ranges from 5 to 12 mils, onto a substrate is that the magnetic materials when placed in a stack can create a sloped stack (one side of the stack higher than the other due to the increased thickness of the magnetic material) as well as a stack that is difficult to align or handle due to the magnetic fields created by the coercive forces between poles in successive magnetic sheets. This can cause the sheets to splay or shift out of alignment making repetitive and continuous feeding difficult and often reducing such an operation to an incremental production of stops and starts so as to accomplish the production of the job.
Magnets have been previously attached to materials and used for purposes of marketing and advertising. Some exemplary prior uses of magnets include calendars, business cards, and frames for photographs, advertising collateral and the like. One example of such a prior art construction is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,458,282. The construction includes a solid magnet that is attached to one end of a substrate and, placed between end edges of the substrate. The magnet is then separable from the substrate via a separation line. The difficulty associated with such prior art constructions is that this construction is often limited in usage to the one advertising arrangement provided with the assembly. That is, the magnet may contain a single business card or reference or contact number and the adjoining substrate may only include printed indicia related to that one event.
Such single purpose forms aren't generally economical for use by small businesses or groups or associations as minimum quantities of such products may require the purchase of several hundred or even several thousand units, whereas a small business may only need a few dozen for selected customers, and then for those products to be potentially personalized.
In addition, to the foregoing drawback, such a construction also requires a magnetic piece to be physically juxtaposed on to a substrate in order to use the product for its intended purpose, that of enabling the substrate to be applied to a metallic surface. Due to the increased thickness of the magnetic material, the substrate along with the magnet attached thereto cannot easily pass through a laser or other non-impact printer due to the hump or bump created by the magnet. This hump can distort the printing of the substrate and potentially cause excessive wear and tear to the print head of the printer due to the abrupt contact with the raised area of the magnet. Thus, the substrate must first be printed and then have the magnetic piece attached thereto. As might be expected, this can create alignment problems if the magnetic material is applied to the incorrect area of the substrate.
Another example similar to the foregoing construction is represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,676,307 to Martin which teaches the use of a substrate to which a magnetic strip has been adhesively applied or juxtaposed entirely over one end of the substrate, but not the entire substrate. The magnetic material is again exposed and would be subject to coercive magnetic forces if the product were placed in a stacked configuration with other similar magnetic products. That is, there is no shield or gap to prevent the magnet of one sheet from interfering with the magnet of a successive sheet. The magnetic portion of the product is then separated through the use of one or more lines of weakness.
These products suffer from several drawbacks. Initially, the line of weakness creates a jagged edge arising out of the separation of the ties from one another in the area of the line of weakness. Where the product is to be used as a remembrance item, it is highly undesirable to have an item which produces a less than desirable aesthetic feature. Secondly, a construction having such a differential height arrangement can cause problems for printing and processing equipment as discussed above. While Martin proposes the use of a ramp or beveled edge to reduce this problem, the ramp or sloped edge has been provided on one edge of the magnetic strip, the edge that is adjacent the exposed or uncovered portion of substrate of the construction. This requires the feeding of the form in only a single direction so that the processing equipment can utilize the benefit of the sloped edge.
Another prior art product is provided in UK Patent Application 2,292,474 which discloses the attachment of a ceramic magnetic disc to the back of a business card, after the business card has been prepared. This allows a user the ability to create a magnetic business card after the card has been prepared or printed. Such a product configuration however requires that the user maintain a supply of imprintable card stock, magnets and a means to attach the magnet to the card stock material. In addition, the concept utilized by the '474 application would not enable the subsequent processing of the material due to the differential thickness of the magnet on the card or stock.
More importantly however, the foregoing thus eliminates the ability for use of such products by small office/home office (“SOHO”) environments, as such environments would not have the desire to purchase rolls of magnetic material, cut the material to size and then affix the material to the substrate being printed. In addition, this prior art construction then virtually eliminates the ability to individually personalize such magnetic pieces, regardless of the size of the business.
Other prior art solutions may utilize a sheet of magnetic material which may be printed upon. However, in order to process this particular construction the magnetic material is provided in a deadened state, one in which there is no readily discernable magnetic force or alternatively it is so weak that the magnetic material as provided is incapable of adhering to a metallic surface. Thus, the manufacturer after printing or processing the sheet must then “charge” the magnet so that it will have a sufficient force to adhere to a metal surface. As expected, the additional step of charging the magnet is time consuming and adds a further layer of expense to the offering being presented. In addition, even after the charging, the magnetic sheets are difficult to handle and cannot be wrapped in a flat stack as the coercive forces of each of the magnetic pole regions causes successive sheets to splay or shift out of alignment with one another.
Solutions to the issue of splaying have been to increase the size of the material that rests between the magnetic material or to use inserts which effectively mitigate the magnetic forces between sheets by separating the sheets a sufficient amount that the coercive forces do not interact. However, in addition to the added costs of the thicker material or inserts, there is the added cost associated with transporting and shipping the material due to the increased thickness or inserts.
A still further solution to this prior art problem was to use a thinner magnetic material, one which was capable of holding only a lesser magnetic force. This construction unfortunately suffers from the drawback that the magnet may not adhere to the desired surface due to the relatively weak field.
Where it has been tried to create an image on a magnetic sheet, that retains a charge, the charge present in the sheet can cause the sheet to migrate out of alignment with the image generator, thus causing the image to appear off center, or be partially cut off. This unfortunately leads to significant waste and disappointment. In addition, where such sheets can be successfully printed, the sheets have a tendency to “lock up” or stick together making quick separation and distribution difficult.
In creating remembrances such as photographs and other personal memorabilia, there has been a desire to image or produce images of subjects, such as students and to create removable magnetic elements that have a clean, sharp peripheral edge that resemble a conventional photograph, but which do not require additional frames, adhesives and the like to hold the photograph.
What is needed therefore is a magnetic product that overcomes the foregoing drawbacks and which renders itself to the production of cleanly removable elements having a pleasing presentation.
Publications, patents and patent applications are referred to throughout this disclosure. All references cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference.